Archive for October 2009

Well.. being on the underpopulated realm is not bad if your side manages to gather some troops and form some resistance. So it was done in the last couple of days/weeks..and though on some days destruction managed to attack Altdorf 2-3 times a day they didn’t manage to get into stage2. On some days we pushed them or at least have some decent fights, which was fun for both sides. Often enough it was just enough for destruction to form a random/pug zerg (with way more than 10 warbands) and roll over the order forces ..well sometimes it was just 2 warbands on order side (only getting up to 10 if it was announced that there is a push to IC being planned). All in all order is on average outnumbered 2.5 : 1 and Altdorf is constantly under attack, because of the population imbalance.

They got so often into the city that not only order got sick of defending it, but the higher ranked destruction players also boycott the city because it’s too laggy and not fun at all. I couldn’t care less now if Altdorf is being attacked.. It’s just no fun and the formerly proposed “living city” is just dead..

But there are still massive destruction troops out there who want to farm some tokens (because that is what defines fun for them) and because they have nothing better to do, they start night raids on Altdorf (most likely with no defenders, because most of the people I know sleep at 5 am ;)) … some even brag with being able to hit stage2 when they have no opposition.

Altdorf is now down to 1 star ranking because of this night-time raids and as I said.. I couldn’t care less. Defending is pointless at this stage of campaign/city design.. It’s not about loot I can get..it’s just the fun aspect I am missing. How much fun is a constant 2h long Nordenwatch scenario with lag and bad layout supporting bombing groups?

I have some fun in the game and therefore subscribed again for 3 months, but the fun is not due to the city sieges, live events, etc… it’s just because running around with the alliance is fun.

A8: Many past Star Trek games have failed because the series’ pacifistic nature doesn’t always translate well into action-orientated videogames. Will there be the option to negotiate with hostile races in a diplomatic manner?

AV: Yes there will be diplomatic and non-combat missions for players to engage in. Whether you are transferring commodities, delivering supplies or investigating unknown space anomalies players who want to can find things to do that don’t involve their ship’s phaser arrays.

That being said 2409 is considerably less peaceful than when the shows and movies left the fans and the Federation is on the brink of all out war. So players should expect to see their fair share of enemy encounters.

Taken from an interview from Altern8.com with STO associate producer Andy Velasquez.

I’ve not checked all the tasks for the Live Event Daemon Moon Rising, which begins today..but looking at the currently realm “balance” of 10+ warbands destruction (felt average over the day) vs. 3-5 warbands order (felt max in prime time) I don’t think that I will be able to complete the PQ at any reasonable time.

This just popped up in my mind as I saw the production podcast on the event.. There you have approx. 1 group fighting another group. It’s been a long time since I saw something like this in an RvR lake.

Like the difference between more fun (comparison of city sieges before and past patch 1.3.1 ) and fun (anything besides a city siege)… ;)

Just a short one to sum up my feelings on the speeding up the campaign and bringing the fights to the cities. A constant Nordenwatch aka City siege or flag swapping is not fun to me. I don’t think that I’m alone with this. The only exception might be those who just seek equipment/point and not fights with actual enemies who force you to use some skills, but that’s just a guess. At least some of destruction on Drakenwald celebrated that they were able to get in stage 2 of the city … at 1am.

So when I log in later I will certainly see destruction just before the gates of Altdorf…again.. I think they get to the city something like twice a day. Every day it’s the same.. they start earlier than order and so when you log in you are always in defense and get steamrolled because they get at least twice the number of players together.

Yesterday I got a little bit frustrated, because all I could do in the 1 1/2h I had for gaming was to swap flags … That’s not RvR…

City sieges will become more frequent..which is nothing I welcome, because city siege is still a mess. At least the Altdorf fights are boring as hell. Inevitable City is a bit more fluent and fun, but also not something I’m looking forward to.

Imo it’s the wrong decision to increase the frequency of the city sieges, when there is no concept in making them more fun. It’s just like a (at least) 2h long scenario, where you can have really bad luck and fight in a pug warband versus some g groups. Had this the day before yesterday and it was just not fun. So I expect this to happen more often, as destruction can most of the time run over order, if they organize their attacks. On a day to day basis though, order is fighting back, but when they get all their rr70+ bombing groups things get really ugly..

But that all is just babbling around.. The reason why I made this post is this little detail:

Objects: Players in the process of interacting with an object in the world (for example, a quest object, a flag, etc.) will now be interrupted using the same rules that dismount players who are riding mounts.

So.. no last ae-dot anymore to hinder the enemy from taking a flag or at least get some more seconds? Well.. will not matter to bombing groups anyways. The only thing that bothers me.. Drakenwald (order) seems the only realm worldwide with no slayer/bright wizard bombing groups. ;)

So defending a BO might get more difficult.

All in all.. campaign “progress” will get faster.. which is the wrong direction. Right now it’s imo already too fast. You don’t feel like you’ve accomplished anything when you lock a zone.

Last weekend we had a fight over Dragonwake which went for couple of hours. Always back and forth.. this was real fun as there were couple of warbands on both sides always fighting over territory. It was no capture the flag or PQ-race for points. Just fight over a zone with great tactics and strategies on both sides. It’s fun when you have a fight with 3 warbands on both sides and the enemy pushes not only through the center, but also tries to flank you and you as a defender have to move and strengthen the flanks.. all in all very dynamic and fun, not just braindead bombing through to the healers.

Well.. now it’s too late to complain and I will have to see if this direction is more fun. It will certainly bring better equipment, but as this is no measure for fun to me I stay skeptical about that fast-forward campaign-locking..

There is no I in RvR.. Yesterday I’ve done the terrible thing and pug’ed scenarios with my Witch Hunter. Some went good, some bad.. sometimes with extremes on both occasions. So ..you would think..nothing to worry about as you can’t always win, unless something is going terribly wrong in balancing. As always someone is taking a clear loss in a scenario too personal and starts to yell around how pathetic Order is and why they can’t get it done in scenarios…

Well.. In scenario chat I made clear that order was not at full force in that specific scenario and that the enemy has one (well-known) pre-made group in it. So there was not really a chance for a good fight.

I could go on.. but the point is, that this ..person.. yelled how bad all the others are. It happens often ..and I catch myself thinking it from time to time (working on it, so that it doesn’t happen so often).. that someone points at the others instead of thinking about the own tactics.

Lesson.. sometimes pug’s work, sometimes not. Yelling at others doesn’t help them in getting better. Try to think about what you can do to improve the result and be constructive when criticizing your teammates.

The second thing:

There is no I in RvR.. In September Order took some heavy beating from Destruction. It was really frustrating as you couldn’t do anything against a zerg of more than 5 warbands roaming from BO to keep to fortress (which they didn’t attack because the city siege is not working correctly). You, as an individual, were helpless and this wave of frustration went over all of order. This led to people leaving the game or not logging in and so the defense force was getting smaller.. No need to tell how much fun it is to fight with 1 warband against 5 others ;)

As I’ve heard just one week ago, there was on rvr-active alliance which declared September as a PvE month and this led to this destruction domination. This alliance is back and they organized some defense. Last week we were able to stand ground against destruction and this led to a motivation boost. Funnily, looking at the forum, this boost happened on both realms and everyone is enjoying the game more. ;)

Ok..it’s still zerg against zerg.. (I’ve finished 112th in a roll when we captured a keep..and I didn’t finished last one in that roll ;) ).. but as numbers get more equal the fun comes back.

This all just emphasizes the difference I see in a RvR-oriented to let’s say a PvE focused game.

When planing a raid/dungeon run you have to just find a few others to complete it and in general you could ignore the rest of the population. You can be elite(-ish) and don’t have to care about those who don’t fulfill your standards… ;)

In an RvR based game, where your realm fights another realm, the individual gets less pronounced and you are forced more to rely on the skills of the others than only on your own skills. You can still be elite, but this can be just outnumbered by a brain-afk zerg. It’s really fun when you notice an motivation boost on a whole realm, but can be really frustrating when you just feel an overall lack of motivation to stand against the enemy.

You are less in control and this is really both positive and negative…